Cuba: The Process of Socialist Development

Since the revolutionary victory of January 1, 1959, two themes have characterized the process of Cuban development: the need to industrialize and the imperative of social participation in the development process. "With the exception of a few food, lumber and textile industries, Cuba continues to be a producer of raw materials. We export sugar and import candy, we export hides and import shoes, we export iron and import ploughs. Everybody agrees that the need to industrialize the country is urgent" (Castro, 1967: 4). For Cuban living standards to rise and livelihoods to be more secure, the economy had to be reorganized to be less dependent on primary production (essentially sugar) and more oriented to secondary production (manufacturing). This was a transition that crucially relied on an economic surplus for investment in manufacturing processes, a surplus to be generated by international trade, and a recurring constraint has been Cuba's dependence on sugar as the major export. "Cuban development strategy since the Revolution has always been in the context of a dependent external sector that has been a major obstacle" (Rodriguez, 1990: 209, my translation). Industrialization was part and parcel of the "development" that was to be achieved as part of a process of self-determination-a revolutionary process that had a long history in Cuba (see August, 1999: Chaps. 1-3). "Our task is to enlarge democracy within the revolutionary process as much as possible . . . to assure channels for the expression of the popular will" (Che Guevara, quoted by Zeitlin, 1970: 78). At times these objectives have conflicted; economic and political imperatives have been in contradiction.